Vax

[RedBlue]

The only prior mention of Vax was in Secret History when Ruin dies and Ati drops briefly into Shadesmar:

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Ruin stood up nearby, blinking. Or . . . no, it wasn’t Ruin any longer. It was just the Vessel, Ati. The man who had held the power. Ati ran his hand through his red hair, then looked about. “Vax?” he said, sounding confused.

And that’s it. No further context. Since then, we’ve been trying to work out what this meant.

Turns out, Vax is a place. Ed has ‘Vaxilian’ heritage, though he was born and raised in Silverlight. Chrysalis references ‘true Vaxilians’ as an example of a non-human mortal.

From this, I infer that Vax is a planet inhabited by humans, and also a group of non-human sapients.

As of Emberdark, people on Vax are capable of getting off-planet, and have been for at least a few decades (allowing Ed’s family time to migrate to Silverlight). As FTL is an established thing at this point, this doesn’t tell us whether or not Vax has a perpendicularity.

This also doesn’t answer the question of what Ati was on about. Presumably, he mistook the Scadrian subastral for Vax? That would make Vax a very, very strange place. Or maybe Ati has some strong personal connection to Vax that made it come to the forefront of his mind? 

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, RedBlue said:

The only prior mention of Vax was in Secret History when Ruin dies and Ati drops briefly into Shadesmar

Not the only mention of Vax - Ars Arcanum to Elantris:

Spoiler

How, then, is a practitioner of AonDor Initiated? It does not appear to be tied to family descent, as one finds on Scadrial, nor is it a specific Shard’s Decision, as on Nalthis. Even Taldain’s and Vax’s methods do not seem to apply here. I can only surmise random chance is involved, unless there is a hidden pattern I have not been able to discern.

Also, Brandon implied Vax may not be a Planet - WoBs:

Spoiler

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Argent

Is Vax a planet?  It’s clearly suggested that it is.

Brandon Sanderson

What’s that?

Argent

It’s heavily suggested that it is.

Brandon Sanderson

It is heavily suggested that it is a place.

Argent

It's a place. Okay, I'll take that.

*talking to other attendees* Vax is a place.

Brandon Sanderson

No no, heavily suggested that it's a place, is what I said!

Calamity Chicago signing (Feb. 22, 2016)

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Diego98 (paraphrased)

Would Leras recognize Vax or is it just like some Ati backstory??

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yeah, he would recognize Vax.

Madrid signing (July 16, 2019)

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LeftImBorn (paraphrased)

Is Vax a good place to get vaccines?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

*laughs* The place where Vax would be is not at a place where vaccines have been developed.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

 

Also notable - the other mention of Vax was in the Elantris Ars Arcanum, and we still do not know who or what inhabits the Third Continent of Sel. (correlation does not imply causation - just noting the connection for discussion). 

Spoiler

Nimrod Rappaport

In Arcanum Unbounded you mentioned that Sel is one of the biggest planets. You also mentioned that there are three empires on that planet. In Elantris 2 two will we get... You also mentioned that they are largely ignorant of each other, will we get a book in which those empires interact? Maybe in Elantris 2? 

Also, can you please specify on their nature and maybe some inspirations you got when writing and thinking about them?

Brandon Sanderson

So, sure. Sel wears its inspirations quite blatantly on its sleeve, right? It's not that obvious for instance in Stormlight that the Alethi are based off of Mongolians, because there's so much more in the mix there, that it's not quite as obvious. But in Sel, it's a little more obvious. You know, basically the idea came to me that what if the vikings had united behind a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and we had Catholic vikings, conquering the world. What would the world look like and that is where the entire religion came from.

Actually the truth is it's like, there was this priest, right, and one group became Buddhist and the other became Catholic vikings and, you know, Buddhist Renaissance... Italians is kind of where we got there and of course, the Rose Empire the inspirations are a little bit more Eastern and Middle Eastern. For instance, the Grands are based on Babylonian influences and I'm kind of looking at a lot of Babylonian, a little bit of Syrian. But of course Shai is very very clearly based on East Asian cultures and specifically China.

So, the empires and things like that... for there you might have noticed that we've got a Europe centered one, and an Asia/Eastern centered one, so you might be able to theorize where the third empire's inspirations might be or at least a list of possible candidates.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 17, 2019)

Hope that helps.

Edited July 5, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[+Oltux72 he/him]

14 hours ago, RedBlue said:

This also doesn’t answer the question of what Ati was on about. Presumably, he mistook the Scadrian subastral for Vax? That would make Vax a very, very strange place. Or maybe Ati has some strong personal connection to Vax that made it come to the forefront of his mind? 

It may just mean that the subastrals of Vax and Scadrial look similar.

[Ink and Embers Any pronouns]

I don't know how canonical this is, but Vax is listed in the Stormlight RPG World Guide as a planet